Lauren Hutton proves beauty is ageless

Lauren Hutton has traveled the world, living with tribes in Africa and spending time with farmers in the Amazon jungle. She’s wrestled alligators and dived among sharks.

The model and actress also has appeared on the cover of Vogue 25 times. In 2005, eternally youthful at age 61, she posed nude for another magazine’s cover story about her career. This February, she sported a short ecru tunic that showed off her legs for a new ad campaign for the Swedish retailer H&M, which typically appeals to a much younger audience.

And now, in her first movie role in 20 years, she is starring alongside Demi Moore and David Duchovy in The Joneses, which opened last week.

Hutton, 66, talked with the Chronicle about her adventures and that signature gap in her teeth.

A: It was the best script anyone has sent me in 20 years. I also didn’t get any scripts the first 10 years. It was certainly the age thing, which is odd because there are more people my age than any other.

Q: With all your travels, you seem like a rarity in Hollywood?

A: I’m an emu. I’m too much of a rare bird. My main career is living with tribes and seeing the world. My second career was modeling. My third career was acting. You won’t meet anyone who’s done any movies with that background.

Q: What spurred you to want to travel the world?

A: The Tarzan television series with Johnny Weissmuller and seeing all the people he was hanging with. They seemed to be sensible. They didn’t wear clothes. They swung on vines. They had a good life.

Q: Why did you want to model?

A: Money. As soon as I found out models made a dollar a minute, I decided I wanted to model. It also allowed me to go on my travels and still have a job when I came back.

Q: What do you think about the industry now?

A: It has gotten nuttier and nuttier. I see the girls at shows now and they are panting in ultra-high platform shoes. They don’t have the energy to get to the end of the runway. It looks like they are going to fall down because they are so weak.

Q: You started Lauren Hutton Cosmetics in 2000. What have you learned about the industry?

A:I don’t like business. It’s not fun. I make about a tenth of what I used to make as a model. I used to work 40 days a year, now I work 300-some days a year. But I don’t like to quit things.

Q:So many women use your cosmetics to help them look and feel beautiful, right?

A: Yes, that’s true. I keep telling myself that’s the reason I’m doing it. I get thousands of e-mails from women telling me how good the products are. As a model, I was privileged to work with all the best people decade after decade, and I learned a million tricks you can do in six minutes. So I was lucky.

Q: What advice do you give women about makeup?

A: Makeup is a woman’s weapon in how she presents herself to the world. It’s part of our armor.

Q: Would you ever do a clothing line?

A: No. Designers have to do four collections a year. Talk about work. That’s true nightmare hell. I like having a life.

Q: How would you describe your own fashion style?

A: If I get something I really like, I try to wear it a bunch of days in a row. But usually I get food on me. I still like my white tennis shoes, jeans, jackets and sweaters.

Q: Did anyone ever try to get you to fix the gap in your teeth?

A: Everyone wanted me to cut my nose, fix my teeth. I kept saying I would, but I never did. I had a gap before The Gap, and I was Lauren before Ralph (Lauren). It’s hilarious.